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Fresh

The Tomatometer is 60% or higher.

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The Tomatometer is below 60%.

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Movies and TV shows are Certified Fresh with a steady Tomatometer of 75% or
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Greta Garbo

Few who knew Swedish actress Greta Garbo in her formative years would have predicted the illustrious career that awaited her. Garbo grew up in a rundown Stockholm district, the daughter of an itinerant laborer. In school, she did little to distinguish herself; nor was her first job, as a barbershop lather girl, indicative of future greatness. But, even as a youth, she photographed beautifully, a fact that enabled her to get a few modeling jobs with the Stockholm department store where she worked. Her first film was a 1921 publicity short financed by her employers titled How Not to Dress. Garbo followed this with Our Daily Bread, a one-reel commercial for a local bakery. She then played a bathing beauty in a 1922 two-reel comedy, Luffarpetter/Peter the Tramp. Billed under her own last name, Garbo (born Greta Gustafsson) garnered a couple of good trade reviews, and the confidence to seek out and win a scholarship to the Royal Dramatic Theatre. While studying acting, she was spotted by director Mauritz Stiller, who was Sweden's foremost filmmaker in the early '20s. Stiller cast Garbo in The Atonement of Gosta Berling (1923), an overlong but internationally successful film which made her a minor star. The director became her mentor, glamorizing her image and changing her professional name to Garbo. On the strength of Gosta Berling, she was cast in the important German film drama The Joyless Street (1925), which was directed by G.W. Pabst. Hollywood's MGM studios, seeking to "raid" the European film industry and spirit away its top talents, then signed Stiller to a contract. MGM head Louis B. Mayer was unimpressed by Garbo's two starring roles, but Stiller insisted on bringing her to America; thus, Mayer had to contract her, as well. The actress spent most of 1925 posing for nonsensical publicity photos which endeavored to create a "mystery woman" image for her (a campaign that had worked for previous foreign film actresses like Pola Negri), but it was only after shooting commenced on Garbo's first American film, The Torrent (1926), that MGM realized it had a potential gold mine on its hands. As Mauritz Stiller withered on the vine due to continual clashes with the studio brass, Garbo's star ascended. But when MGM refused to pay her commensurate to her worth, Garbo threatened to walk out; the studio counter-threatened to have the actress deported, but, in the end, they buckled under and increased her salary. In Flesh and the Devil (1927), Garbo co-starred with John Gilbert, and it became obvious that theirs was not a mere movie romance. The Garbo/Gilbert team went on to make an adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina titled Love (its original title was Heat, but this was scrapped to avoid an embarrassing ad campaign which would have started with "John Gilbert and Greta Garbo in..."). The couple planned to marry, but Garbo, in one of her frequent attacks of self-imposed solitude, did not show up for the wedding; over the years, the actress would have other romantic involvements, but would never marry. In 1930, MGM's concerns about Garbo's voice -- that her thick Swedish accent (tinged with "stage British") would not register well in talkies -- were abated by the success of Anna Christie, which was heralded with the famous ad tag "Garbo Talks." Some noted that the slogan could also have been "Garbo Acts," for the advent of talkies obliged the actress to drop the "mysterious temptress" characterization she'd used in silents in favor of more richly textured performances as worldly, somewhat melancholy women to whom the normal pleasures of love and contentment would always be just out of reach. In this vein, Garbo starred in Grand Hotel (1932), Queen Christina (1933), Anna Karenina (1935), and Camille (1936), which served to increase her worshipful fan following, even if the films weren't the box-office smashes her silent pictures had been. The actress' legendary aloofness and desire to "be alo

Quotes from Greta Garbo's Characters

If it's a choice between my personal interest and the good of my country how can I waiver? No one shall say Ninotchka was a bad Russian.

Ninotchka:

No one can be so happy without being punished.

Ninotchka:

Gentlemen, would you like to go out? [reaches into her desk drawer] Here are 50 francs - bring me back 45.

Ninotchka:

Gentlemen, would you like to go out? Here are 50 Francs - bring me back 45.

Ninotchka:

Isn't that amazing, at home there is still snow and ice. Look at the birds. I always felt a little hurt when our swallows deserted us for capitalistic countries. Now I know why: we have the high ideals, but they have the climate.

Count Leon Dalga:

Ninotchka, you like me just a little bit?

Ninotchka:

Your general appearance is not distasteful.

Count Leon Dalga:

Thank you.

Ninotchka:

The whites of your eyes are clear. Your cornea is excellent.

Count Leon Dalga:

- your cornea's terrific! Ninotchka tell me, you're so expert on things: can it be that I'm falling in love with you?

Ninotchka:

Why must you bring in wrong values? Love is a romantic designation for a most ordinary biological, or shall we say chemical, process. A lot of nonsense is taught and written about it.

Count Leon Dalga:

Oh I see. What do you use instead?

Ninotchka:

I acknowledge the existence of a natural impulse, common to all.

Count Leon Dalga:

What can I possibly do to encourage such an impulse in you?

Count Leon Dalga:

You don't have to do a thing. Chemically we're already quite sympathetic.

Ninotchka:

I must go.

Count Leon Dalga:

But Ninotchka - I held you in my arms, you kissed me.

Ninotchka:

I kissed a polish lancer too - before he died.

Count Leon Dalga:

Pardon me, are you an explorer?

Ninotchka:

No. I'm looking for the Eiffel Tower.

Count Leon Dalga:

Good Heavens, is that thing lost again? Oh, are you interested in the view?

Ninotchka:

I'm interested in the Eiffel Tower from a technical standpoint.

Count Leon Dalga:

Technical? No, no; I'm afraid I couldn't be of much help from that angle. You see a Parisian only goes to the tower in moments of despair - to jump off.

Count Leon Dalga:

Technical? No, no, I'm afraid I couldn't be of much help from that angle. You see a Parisian only goes to the tower in moments of despair - to jump off.

Ninotchka:

How long does it take a man to land?

Count Leon Dalga:

Now isn't that too bad; the last time I jumped I forgot to time it.

Count Leon Dalga:

Now isn't that too bad, the last time I jumped I forgot to time it.

Ninotchka:

Comrades - you must have been smoking a lot.

Grusinskaya:

I want to be alone.

Madame Barjon:

For the lady of the camillias. And they're almost twice as large as usual.

Marguerite Gauthier/Camille:

I shall have twice as many tomorrow

Prudence Duvernoy:

Twice as many! Oh, don't listen to her, Barjon. I know what those things cost.

Madame Barjon:

Doesn't she listen when she orders her hats and dresses from you?

Prudence Duvernoy:

They're an investment!

Marguerite Gauthier/Camille:

Of course I order too many hats and too many dresses and too many everything, but I want them.

Marguerite Gauthier/Camille:

Cows and chickens make better friends than I've ever met in Paris!

Marguerite Gauthier/Camille:

I always look well when I'm near death.

Armand Duval:

Then you do love him. Dare to tell me that you love him. You're free of me forever.